The City of Johannesburg (CoJ) believes its R110-billion investment into its infrastructure over the next ten years will help “climate-proof” the municipality.
The executive mayor of the city, Clr Mpho Parks Tau, said extreme fluctuations in weather patterns underscore the unpredictability of climate change in the future.
In a statement issued prior to the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group Mayors Summit, Clr Tau said, “Joburg will become hotter and wetter. The choices we make today will determine how resilient our city will be in the future.”
The CoJ is hosting the event, which started today, February 4, and ends on Thursday.
Aware of its ageing infrastructure, capacity constraints and backlogs, the city will allocate more than R30-billion for replacement, upgrading and new infrastructure over the next three years. The mayor stated that old infrastructure needs to be upgraded with the assistance of relevant engineering experts to withstand floods, heat-waves, drought, scarce resource supply and service delivery disruptions with the appropriate monitoring systems in place.
“The city is aware of the responsibility to ensure capital investment supports a low carbon, resource efficient strategy, coupled with the ability to adapt to climate change impacts,” said the mayor.
He added that climate change is anticipated to increase the pace of migration as people face natural resource scarcity and the collapse of agricultural livelihoods.
He said that Johannesburg is faced with the challenge of providing housing, services and opportunities for this growing urban population.
“Infrastructure development is fundamental to many of the city’s priority programmes. In particular, the commitment to ensuring that all residents have access to higher levels of basic services, to reduce the high levels of water and electricity losses with refurbished and smart infrastructure, to develop new generation infrastructure that will complement the supply of water, electricity and fuel supply within the city and to ensure the more sustainable use infrastructure through a more compact city form through the implementation of the Corridors of Freedom,” said the mayor.
Groundwater systems, flooding and drainage problems are said to be affecting all parts of the city. To deal with some of the challenges, impoundment and river rehabilitation programmes have been implemented. This includes the upper Jukskei sub-catchment area.
“Increased flooding and storm-water management challenges will be seen in the context of changes to the whole natural drainage system resulting from urban development,” said Clr Tau.
Johannesburg Water is making progress in the implementation of pipe replacement pressure management measures, pre-paid meters and awareness programmes to reduce unaccounted for water.
As part of its efforts to become more energy resilient, the city has also invested in and implemented a number of energy initiatives and projects.
